Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Outrage Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov December 8, 2011

Nominated for the prestigious Palme d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Takeshi Kitano's "Autoreiji" a.k.a "Outrage" (2010) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Studio Canal. The supplemental features on the disc include the film's original theatrical trailer and a long featurette with cast interviews and raw footage from the shooting of the film. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

What kind of a deal?

Takeshi Kitano plays Otomo, the violent underboss of a powerful gang led by Ikemoto (Jun Kunimura, Audition, Ichi the Killer), an influential man with plenty of dangerous ambitions. Ikemoto’s is part of the strong Sanno-kai yakuza organization, which controls metropolitan Tokyo.

Ikemoto receives an order from Sekuichi a.k.a Mr. Chairman (Soichiro Kitamura, Bayside Shakedown, Bayside Shakedown II), the head of Sanno-kai, to confront Murase (Renji Ishibashi, Tokyo!, A Good Husband), another crime boss, who has started selling drugs on his turf. The order presents a difficult dilemma because Ikemoto and Murase are sworn brothers. Ikemoto also gets a percentage of all drug sales.

Despite the fact that they are brothers and business partners, Ikemoto and Murase clash, with Otomo’s men right in the middle of the drama. Outraged by the developments, Murase requests a meeting with Mr. Chairman, but before he could see him Otomo makes sure that he would never be able to speak again.

Chaos ensues after the rest of the bosses in Sanno-kai choose a side in the conflict -- but not because they wish to support Murase or Ikemoto, but because they sense that this is a good opportunity to expand their turfs. Eventually, after it becomes obvious that he won’t be able to completely take over Murase’s business, Ikemoto decides to banish Otomo to restore balance within the organization and rebuild his relationship with his former partner.

After a rather long streak of art-house projects, some quite good, some not overly impressive, Takeshi Kitano appears to be back in familiar waters with Outrage, an extremely violent yakuza film that should appeal primarily to the actor/director’s longtime fans, and especially those who consider his early crime films to be his best. Kitano wrote the script for the film and for the first time ever shot in the wide Kowa Scope (2.39:1).

The main characters are very bad men who do some terrible things to each other. However, as terrible as some of the killings are, they are also quite original. There are two in particular from the second half of the film, which I have absolutely no doubt will be copied by Hollywood at some point in the future.

Other than these original killings, however, the film does not have much else to offer. Its observations about yakuza feel more like very poor replicas of those Kinji Fukasaku delivered with his films years ago, while its dark cynicism eventually becomes impossible to tolerate. Still, the scenes where Kitano goes berserk make the film worth seeing, but the rest looks and feels too mechanical, too mathematical, too mainstream.

The production values are strong, from Katsumi Yanagijima’s (Sonatine, Battle Royale) sharp lensing to Yoshinori Ohta’s (Fireworks, Brother) competent editing to Senji Horiuchi and Kenji Shibazaki’s sound effects. The minimalistic music score was composed by rock veteran Keiichi Suzuki, who previously collaborated with Kitano on his award winning film Zatôichi.

Note: In 2010, Outrage was nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Outrage Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Takeshi Kitano's Outrage arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Studio Canal.

The Hong Kong Blu-ray release of Outrage by Panorama used a very strong high-definition transfer, and I was expecting the UK release to be just as impressive. And it certainly is -- detail is terrific, clarity excellent throughout the entire film, and contrast levels stable. The color-scheme favors the same rich but natural blues, greens, grays, and browns that shape up the distinctive look the film has on the Hong Kong release as well (I have not seen Outrage theatrically, but I assume that this is indeed the correct color balance). There is a small difference in the brightness levels - the Hong Kong release looks marginally darker (comapre screenshot #5 with screenshot #1 from the Hong Kong release) - but the difference is insignificant. Lastly, compression here is slightly better, and I did not see any banding patterns to report in this review. All in all, the presentation is competent and enormously satisfying. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

Outrage Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Japanese LPCM 2.0. For the record, Studio Canal have provided imposed English subtitles for the main feature (they cannot be turned off). They appear inside the image frame.

The Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track has s strong dynamic amplitude that enhances the many action scenes in the film very well. There is good surround-channel activity as well. Keiichi Suzuki's soundtrack also gets a strong boost, and during a number of key scenes the industrial noises it incorporates are indeed very effective. The dialog is exceptionally crisp, clean, stable, and easy to follow. There are no sync issues and the English translation is excellent.

Outrage Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - the original theatrical trailer for Outrage. In English and Japanese, with imposed English subtitles. (2 min, 1080p).

• Featurette - in this featurette, director Takeshi Kitano and cast members discuss the production history of Outrage and the various characters in the film, as well as their impressions of each other. The featurette also contains raw footage from the shooting of selected scenes. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (19 min, 1080p).

Outrage Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Outrage is an ambitious but ultimately rather predictable gangster film that should appeal primarily to longtime fans of Japanese superstar Takeshi Kitano. I thought that the film was quite entertaining at times but lacking the rawness and charm of Takeshi Kitano's early films, and specifically Violent Cop, Boiling Point, Sonatine, and Hana-bi. Let's hope that we will eventually see these films on Blu-ray as well. RECOMMENDED.